A Beginner’s Guide to creating Content that converts

Traffic to your site becomes irrelevant when visitors are only thinking about leaving faster.“I came, I puked, I left” (Avinash Kaushik)

The main reason for creating content is to demonstrate your expertise in your field, establish credibility, develop trust and ultimately turn your readers into customers.

Content promotion is at the heart of any online marketing campaign. A website offering quality content will be successful even if it’s not optimized for Google or social networks. The simple combination of relevant content and content marketing will quickly bring the right results when targeted at the right audience.

What are the advantages of creating quality content?
Before we share 10 tips with you, here are some brief definitions of basic content terms:
What is “Content”? Content is everything you publish. Text, videos, images, graphics, infographics, audio, PDF’s, slideshows etc. In short, the information (in digital format) that drives the visitors to your website.

What is “Content Marketing”? There are many sophisticated definitions of the term “Content Marketing”, but the simplest is: content marketing is the creation and promotion of content to increase traffic to a site, in order to get new enquiries, which converts into new customers, sponsors, partners or simply increases your personal reputation (or notoriety).

Content is the focus of any online marketing campaign.

The main benefits that you can get from content promotion are:

Brand awareness – quality content will enable readers to talk and share information about your brand (name, product, service, etc.) and increase the opportunity for mouth-to-mouth advertising/recommendations. Which is of course the best kind.

It’s great for SEO – quality content is at the heart of optimizing a site for search engines. Google just loves quality content! Which means more visits from searches – the more content you publish the more organic visitors you will get (from search engine results pages).

More visits from social networks – quality content, once published, will be distributed to users on social networks, which will bring new visitors to the site.

Better interaction with potential customers – if you provide relevant content, users will interact with it in the form of comments, reviews and discussions with other users. They will talk about you!

More sales – if the users like the content they will probably become your customers (they will buy from you).

10 Tips to create Content that Converts

Relevant content
When you begin publishing content on your website, look for information that is relevant to your business niche. For many, this aspect is already clear, but there are people who make mistakes. If you have a website that promotes a medical office or a construction company don’t post recipes just because you liked them. No one will punish you if you do, but you will get no benefit from the continual publishing of unrelated articles to your field.

The best way to publish relevant content is to follow unswervingly the “line” of your field. Let’s say your business sells espresso machines (or coffee filters). You will of course have on your site technical descriptions for each item (text, pictures and/or videos about design, functionality, supplies, etc.). It’s a good idea to publish articles about coffee (how to grind it, drink it, etc.). This is relevant content, and studies show that more than half of visitors are satisfied if they can access and read related content.

Longer content
When it comes to articles, various studies show that long posts (over 1500 words) will be better positioned by Google search results and will be better assessed on social networks than short ones. In other words, it’s a good practice to publish a long article that covers a subject fully than to write 2 – 3 short articles on the subject. Since long articles are popular on social networks, you will give your readers exactly what they want.

Content that can be easily distributed
You must identify what type of content your potential clients are looking for on social networks. If you’re promoting a clothing store you’ll find that users appreciate pictures and videos. If you have an IT store, your visitors will appreciate product reviews. You must find out what they want and offer them that content. This way your content will become viral and bring you unexpected results in terms of visibility.

Content that looks good
Quality content means original information, well documented and objective about a given subject, but the form in which it is presented it’s also very important. Indeed, often the “package” is more appreciated than the content itself…content that looks good means using paragraphs, bold, italic headings, appropriate characters and sizes, etc. Attention to detail is an asset also for SEO, because it’s a sign that you’re trying to build a quality site (and Google will appreciate you for it).

Constant content
Beside publishing quality and informative content, you need to be consistent even when it comes to date and time, if possible). Set a calendar for publishing and become more organized.
Don’t forget that new, fresh content will:

make search engines index your site more often

get you more newsletter visits (if you have implemented this on your site and if you haven’t, stop waiting around)

get more visitors from social networks

Content with appealing titles
The title of your article is very important for many reasons:

It will help search engines understand the topic of the article

It will help social networks understand what are you distributing

It will attract the attention of your visitors

Content that it’s better than the competition’s
Unfortunately, you are not alone in the market. Content promotion means publishing content that’s better than the competition’s. Before starting to create content, search your competitors on and check out their content, pay special attention to the content that ranks well. Notice the length of the articles, quality and design and try to come up with something better. Don’t waste your time publishing if you’re not creating content that’s better than the competition’s.

Content right in front of your potential customers
Don’t expect your potential customers to search for your products (or services), enter the site and buy them. When you publish an article (any content) you have to make it known. The easiest way to make it known is on social networks (reactions are immediate), but don’t forget about the power of email.

Organised content
When you’re already a veteran in content publishing (in a few months time), you’ll end up with a lot of content and if it’s not organised, you’ll feel lost. The best strategy is to organize your content into specific categories and to use labels (tags), keywords and descriptions, so you can easily find what you are looking for as and when you need it.

Content that converts
Finally, don’t forget that the main reason for creating content is to turn your visitors into customers. Conversion can mean several things, from newsletter signups to banner clicks to getting more sales.

Content is important for all types of businesses (small or large). The benefits of content promotion are many and market studies show that most consumers (around 70%) prefer to read objective articles about and by a company than to see an advert. In determining the content strategy you must find the right balance between creating content and visitor satisfaction. An effective marketing campaign will bring satisfied visitors that will eventually become customers.

If the content you publish has different results than expected, perhaps it would be appropriate to change your strategy and think about alternative methods of creating and promoting content. Of course, you can always call specialists. This can be one of the best options to get the best results. Just contact one of our experts and get a free marketing consultation to check where you are and what you need to do.

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